Game Theory #19: The Hollywood-Pentagon Complex

This weekend, we have reached a turning point in the war. It is possible that in a few hours or by tomorrow, we will reach the point of no return. Donald Trump has threatened the Iranians, saying that on Tuesday, if the Iranians still refuse to open the Strait of Hormuz, then the Americans will destroy Iranian power plants, bridges, and universities. Basically, the Americans will start attacking critical civilian infrastructure, which will force Iranians to strike hard against the GCC—the oil fields, the desalination plants, and the universities as well. This would mean that the world would lose 20% of its energy supply, which would be a catastrophe for the global economy. It would de-industrialize the world and create global famine, among other problems.

Hopefully, Trump is bluffing, because he has been known to bluff before. In fact, he's issued many ultimatums to Iran before and then backed down. Trump often chickens out and says, "You know what? I said a day, but I'll give you a week instead." But this time, I want to show you that it's different. This weekend, the Americans went all-in. They launched a ground invasion. It failed. And instead of saying, "You know what, we probably can't beat Iran. Let's negotiate a peace deal," the Americans will now go all-in and launch a full-scale ground invasion called the national draft, and the world will never be the same again.

This is a tweet that Donald Trump sent to the Iranians, where he calls them "crazy bastards" and says, "praise be to Allah." A lot of people think he is now deranged. Clearly, he's angry at the Iranians.

The Americans and the Israelis have constantly escalated attacks against civilian targets in Iran. Trump ordered the destruction of Iran's largest bridge.

This is considered a war crime because you're not supposed to target civilian infrastructure. Now, you can make the argument that this is dual-use, meaning that the military uses it as well, but everything is dual-use. The military also uses water, they also use electricity, and their kids also go to university. So, there's a great fear now that we are already at the point of no return. The Iranians themselves have promised to start attacking universities in the GCC in retaliation.

If Trump were to destroy the Iranian power plants, this would be devastating for the Iranian economy. There's news now that Iran is organizing a protest where young people are asked to go to power plants and form a human chain so that if the jets come to destroy the power plants, they will be destroyed as well. Some people think this is the Iranians calling Trump's bluff. That's not a good idea, because on the first day of the war, the Americans killed 168 schoolgirls in southern Iran. This shows that the Americans and the Israelis don't really care about human life. But by doing this, if the Americans actually do destroy power plants and kill a lot of young people in the process, it would galvanize the nation into total war.

What's important to understand is that throughout this war, there have been different voices in Iran. Some, like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, want total war. But there are also some who are worried about the economic damage from this war and about giving too much power to the military. But if Donald Trump goes and attacks these power plants, then the Iranians will be going to total war. They will be totally committed to destroying the American military presence in the Middle East as well as the global economy. Unfortunately, the Americans and the Israelis don't really care because they're committed to destroying Iran as a viable nation-state.

Already, we are seeing increases in fuel prices.

If you are in the red, it means that you've seen prices go up a lot. America, Australia, China, and Europe have seen prices skyrocket. This is only just the beginning. We can expect gas prices to skyrocket so much that it essentially collapses the civilian aviation industry, meaning that in the future, if you want to fly, it might cost you 10 times as much as it does now. This will happen very, very quickly.

But again, the main issue—and I need to emphasize this—is not the fuel. The main issue is the fertilizer. Fertilizer is important because you need it to grow food, and we are in the planting season. It is because of fertilizer that we are able to support 8 billion people. If we do not have access to fertilizer, we can only grow enough food to support one to two billion people. Unfortunately, this means that in Africa and parts of South Asia, a lot of people there will starve to death. The main concern is famine, not airline tickets.

A New Global Strategy: From Trade Guarantor to Pirate State

As this war is progressing, we need to step back and recognize that this is a global war. The Ukrainians used drones to attack and destroy an oil depot, an oil terminal in Russia. This means now that 40% of Russia's oil exports have gone offline. What's happening is that not only is the Strait of Hormuz closed, but the Americans are also attacking Russia's oil. You have drone strikes on terminals, but also—and you don't see this in the news—there's basically a naval blockade. If you are a Russian oil tanker and the Americans catch you, they'll take your oil. This is basically piracy.

The American strategy before was to be the world's global reserve currency and, as a result, encourage global trade. But now that our economy is suffering, the strategy is to just control the sea lanes. That's the American strategy moving forward.

Some major news from Germany is that if you are a German male between 17 and 45, you are not allowed to leave the country for more than three months without army permission. This is a prelude to a national draft. Why is Germany doing this? Because Germany is an industrial nation. If Russian energy supply goes offline and if energy from the GCC goes offline, Germany has no choice but to remilitarize and create its own energy supplies. Germany must go to war; it has absolutely no choice in the matter.

Let's talk briefly about what's going to happen over the next year. As I said before, the United States was the global reserve currency, which meant that for every transaction made with US dollars, they could tax you by inflating the price of the US dollar. But now that people are choosing to opt out of the US dollar—for example, in China, people are buying more gold and using other currencies—America, in order to maintain its empire, has to change its strategy.

Now, the main source of American power is its ability to control sea lanes because it has military bases all around the world.

In the red, these are all areas with US bases. Before, it used these bases to maintain global trade. But with nations choosing to opt out of your system, your strategy is now to blockade them—a naval blockade to starve them of resources, which forces them to come begging to you for trade access. We've gone from a strategy where America guaranteed global trade to America basically being a mafia state, being pirates, and allowing you to use sea lanes and giving you trade access.

Believe it or not, America does not actually need to do that much work to control trade around the world. It just needs to control certain choke points.

• The Panama Canal is one choke point, and that's why about a third of America's navy is deployed to the Caribbean right now. Its main purpose is to block off trade in the Western Hemisphere. So if you are China, Japan, or South Korea and you want to access Western Hemisphere resources, you need permission from the US government. The example, of course, is Venezuela, where they removed the president and now basically have a blockade over the country, making the Venezuelan government very cooperative.
• Next, we can expect Trump to exert authority over Greenland. Why? Because this is the Arctic choke point, which gives you access to Canada and to Europe as well.
• We're also going to expect America to create a choke point over the Strait of Hormuz. Right now, the issue is that the Iranians control the Strait, but the Americans can also choose to blockade it.
• The major choke point in the world, of course, is the Strait of Malacca. Why? Because this is where China gets most of its resources from Africa and the Middle East, through this very small choke point. And again, unfortunately, there are lots of US military bases in this area.

As long as America is able to maintain these four major choke points—the Panama Canal, the Middle East, Malacca, and Greenland—it can control naval access, trade access, and maritime navigation.

So what's going to happen? The big event this year moving forward is that Russia will militarize its shadow fleet. Russia has a shadow fleet of about a thousand ships. It will provide mercenaries to these ships and then start to engage America in the oceans. The point is not to defeat the American Navy; you can't do that. The point is to create a war of attrition. You know that the Americans will have problems rebuilding these ships, which are pretty old, and the sailors on them are pretty tired. So you just force them into conflict, and then the naval capacity of the United States will degrade over time. This is something to look out for over the next year or two: conflict in the seas will arise between Russia and the United States.

And then you ask yourself, what about China? China is actually the main beneficiary of oceanic trade. China is going to do what China does, which is to say that it's going to try to negotiate between Russia and America, triangulate the two, and try to come to peace with both. That often means paying both of them off—paying the Russians and paying the Americans. That's what happened in May when Trump visited China.

A Failed Invasion or a Heroic Rescue?

The big news this weekend is that the Americans said one of their jets, an F-15—about a $90 million plane—was shot down over Iran. You ask yourself, the Americans have air supremacy over Iran, so how is it possible for the Iranians to shoot down a plane? The answer is this: the US Air Force is not designed to fight a long war. It's designed to fight at most a two-week war. If you fight for too long, you have certain issues.

1. Maintenance: These are very expensive planes that require a lot of maintenance. If they're flying too much, they suffer from wear and tear.
2. Fatigue: These pilots are being asked to work too hard. They get tired and lazy.
3. Iranian Resilience: As you're bombing the Iranians, they have to figure out how to strike back at you. Their radar systems don't really work, so they use heat-seeking missiles. Rather than trying to figure out where you are, they fire missiles up in the air and hope to lock on to your heat signature and knock you down.

Over time, all this means is that as this war progresses, if you insist on fighting a year-long war, you're going to lose more and more planes as your pilots get tired, as maintenance issues arise, and as Iranians become much more creative in their response.

So, a plane was shot down, and two pilots were able to eject safely. It is the policy of the American military to leave no man behind. The Americans are one of the few militaries that actually do this; if you're behind enemy lines, they will try to rescue you. They spend years training you on how to evade enemy captors and will spend a lot of resources trying to save you. The propaganda is that this shows how Americans really value human life, and it's something Americans are very proud of.

But another reason why Americans do this is optics. The Americans believe that their military is invincible, and they spend a lot of money and resources to create this aura of invincibility. If the Iranians are able to capture a pilot and have him appear on Iranian TV, this is a huge propaganda win for them. This means that if the Americans try their best to save you but can't, and there's a risk the enemy will capture you, they would rather have you killed. They can't afford to lose this propaganda war. For the Americans, everything is optics.

There are a lot of issues with the story that's being told to us. The Americans said that they have successfully evacuated both pilots. But the issue is this: we know that the Americans created a makeshift landing strip—a small airport—200 kilometers from where the airman was actually knocked down. He had to hike a long way to get to the landing strip. Also, he was injured; he broke his ankle or something. That was very hard to do while also trying to evade enemy capture. Why did the Americans decide to create a landing strip here rather than someplace closer? And why would you need 155 planes for this operation? Aren't you better off with just one or two to avoid enemy fire? This is a very strange story, but it gets weirder.

It turns out that the Americans spent a lot of resources to save the pilot. It took 48 hours, the CIA created a lot of distractions, and this led to the destruction of very expensive American planes. These are called C-130s; they're transport planes, and they were destroyed in the rescue operation.

The American story is that these planes were caught in the sand and couldn't lift off, so Delta Force—the commandos trying to save the pilot—blew up the planes themselves. As you can see, the Americans in this operation lost a lot of expensive planes. The estimates are that the Americans lost $300 million in planes. And even though the Americans say that there were no casualties in this rescue, we can expect that there were casualties because a lot of planes were destroyed.

This has led people to question whether the narrative is true. You can make the argument that the American military prides itself on "no man left behind," so they will move heaven and earth to save that person. But again, there are issues with this narrative. A man named Arnon Petron on Twitter explains that the story doesn't really make sense.

• First, how did an American fighter jet get knocked down in Iran when the Americans have said they have air supremacy over the country?
• Another issue is that the weapons systems officer is a colonel, a very high-ranking individual. Why would he participate in this operation? That's very strange.
• Even though he was seriously wounded, according to Trump, he still managed to hike up a 7,000-foot mountain ridgeline and hide in the Zagros Mountains for 48 hours despite his wounds.
• Also, we don't know who he is. He's never been identified or interviewed by the press, which is unusual because if you rescue a man, you make him into a national TV star.

A summary of the inconsistencies was posted online:

To sum up, anti-aircraft equipment that supposedly didn't exist shot down an F-15 and apparently an A-10 Warthog. The same day, a seriously wounded man climbed a 2.1 km mountain. The US seized an airfield 200 miles inside a country it's at war with, next to one of its most strategic nuclear sites, and deployed hundreds of troops, all apparently unimpeded. They lost two planes to sand and destroyed their own helicopters. Videos show heavy clashes and missiles raining down, but not a single person got even wounded. And the man at the center of it all? Nobody knows who he is. Completely anonymous, zero pictures, but Trump says he is safe and sound, and so is the rescued A-10 Warthog pilot, who also remains anonymous.

This story makes absolutely no sense. We don't understand why they had to build an airport, how these planes got destroyed, or how there were no casualties.

Maybe something else is going on. People online are speculating that this was actually a failed ground invasion. The mission was to sneak into Iran's nuclear power plant located in the area and steal Iran's enriched uranium, which it would need to build a nuclear weapon. By doing that, you deny the Iranians the capacity to build a nuclear weapon and you can declare a victory.

What's the evidence for this? On March 7th, 2026, at the beginning of this war, a journalist named Barak Ravid wrote an article in Axios saying that the US was considering sending special forces to seize Iran's nuclear stockpile. Ravid is famous in Washington D.C. because he's very close with the Israelis, so he's able to get a lot of information from the government. From March 7th onward, there was news reporting that the Americans would insert special forces to steal the uranium. No one took this seriously because it's so stupid. Are you seriously going to send a hundred guys into the middle of Iran and hope they can sneak into a military base, steal uranium, and then run away? No one would do that. Everyone thought it was just a scare tactic, just disinformation.

But then, a week ago, the Washington Post leaked a Pentagon plan to do exactly that. It's a very detailed plan that involves hundreds or thousands of troops. The idea is to build a landing strip near the power plant to land forces and equipment. When this first came out, again, I didn't take it seriously. Are you seriously going to build an airport by yourself in the middle of Iran and hope the Iranians don't notice? And you're going to land a thousand troops in the middle of mountains where they're going to rain missiles on you? It makes no sense whatsoever.

But unfortunately, if you just look at what happened this weekend, this is the plan they used. They sent 155 aircraft to try to create a landing strip. They sent in special forces. It was exactly the plan that the Washington Post reported on.

But then the question is, wait a minute, this is a top-secret military plan. How did the Washington Post get this? The answer is because we assume that some generals gave it to them. Peter Hext, the Secretary of War for Donald Trump, fired the top generals of the military. We don't know why; there was never a reason given. But we can suspect what happened was this: Donald Trump asked the generals to come up with a plan to steal the uranium. The generals, thinking, "Let's just humor him," came up with this stupid, insane plan that there's no way he would agree to. They presented it to Donald Trump, and he was like, "This is a brilliant plan! This is a great movie! Let's do this, guys!" The generals were like, "Oh my god, he is insane. We are so screwed," and they refused to carry it out. So Peter Hext fired them and ordered the new generals to execute the plan.

Again, we don't know what happened, but the evidence suggests this might have been a failed ground invasion. Another piece of evidence is that the Iranians were able to recover an ID from the crash site.

It turns out that this woman happens to be an engineer specializing in nuclear technology. Why would you need an engineer who specializes in nuclear technology to rescue a pilot? That's kind of strange.

The Americans have done stupid things like this before. In 1980, they implemented something called Operation Eagle Claw. At the time, the Iranians had taken American hostages in Tehran. President Jimmy Carter authorized a rescue operation. But Iran was too big, so the American military set up a forward operating base in the desert. When they landed, there was a sandstorm, a lot of their planes malfunctioned, and they recognized how hard such an operation in Iran was, so they went home. That was 1980, when Americans were pretty sane.

Unfortunately, Americans are no longer sane. On June 3rd, the Americans swept into Venezuela and kidnapped their president, Maduro, thus ending the conflict. This was great TV. The plan worked out perfectly. It showed that Delta Force was invincible. And unfortunately, Donald Trump believes this. He believes that if we did this in Venezuela, we can do this in Iran. This explains how and why he would agree to such an insane plan.

The main message here is that whoever is leading America, for whatever reason, believes that optics is all that matters. They think that reality is a Hollywood movie, and if they can script it properly, the movie will turn out to be a wonderful thing. This is a war about optics rather than strategy, and unfortunately, this is just how America is going to fight the war from now on.

The Three Pillars of Victory: Economics, Organization, and Logistics

If you are fighting a war, there are three things you need to look at.

1. Economics: This is resource management. You're trying to win a war as cheaply and as quickly as possible. If you're spending $300 million in military equipment to rescue one pilot, you're not going to win this war.
2. Organization: This is the implementation of strategy. The simpler the strategy, the easier it is to implement. If you are trying to build an airbase in the middle of Iran so you can extract uranium, that's not good organization. This thing is going to blow up in your face.
3. Logistics: This is simply supply—making sure that your forces have the necessary equipment and resources to fight the war effectively.

Right now, the Americans are not concerned with any of these issues. They are too focused on optics and narrative. That's why I think the Americans will ultimately lose this war, because the Iranians are actually fighting a real war. They're trying to win as cheaply as possible, implementing a very simple strategy that allows for proper organization, and trying to maintain logistics. The Americans are just trying to win the war in the most Hollywood fashion possible, and this is going to lead to disaster.

The Pentagon-Hollywood Propaganda Machine

The reason Americans are like this is because there's too much cooperation between Hollywood and the Pentagon. Saving Private Ryan, made in 1998, is one of the highest-grossing films in Hollywood history. A private named Ryan is lost behind enemy lines, and his brothers have all been killed. His mother writes an angry letter to General Marshall, who decides, "We can't have this. This makes us look bad. We have to win the home front." He sends a team led by Tom Hanks to go and save Private Ryan, which they do, but at the cost of his life.

This movie is based on a letter that Abraham Lincoln supposedly wrote to a mother during the American Civil War in 1864. It's considered one of his most brilliant pieces of writing.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln.

"The sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." Our democracy, our republic is our God, and our sacrifice is worth it as long as we can maintain our freedom and our liberty. This is the defining theology of the American military. This has led to the military becoming more of a propaganda machine.

The movie Black Hawk Down is about Delta Force going in to save a pilot whose helicopter was brought down in Somalia. It was based on a book by Mark Bowden. The problem is that this movie is complete BS. In the book, the helicopter was brought down, and the pilot was taken hostage by the Somalis. But he was treated very well and eventually allowed to go home after the government paid a ransom. That's what happened in real life. But in the movie, Delta Force went in and saved the pilot, reinforcing the mythology of "No Man Left Behind."

There's a very important scene in Black Hawk Down where a general confronts Delta Force and says, "You guys are a bunch of cowboys." What he's saying is that you special forces think you're superior to everyone, that we should all serve you. You are ego-driven. All you care about is glory for yourself. And eventually, your ego and your arrogance are going to be your downfall, as well as the downfall of the American military.

This is Jessica Lynch. In 2003, she was serving in the war in Iraq. Her team got lost and was ambushed, and she was captured. Because she was injured, the Iraqi military sent her to a civilian hospital. The people there treated her very well and actually tried to send her home in an ambulance. But when the ambulance tried to reach the Americans, they bombed it, so it had to turn back. The Iraqis informed the Americans where she was and told them they could come and pick her up anytime. The American response was to organize special forces to go and "rescue" her, even though she was not in danger. The media reported that she was raped, beaten, and held hostage.

The Pentagon is a propaganda machine. It doesn't care about the truth; it just cares about creating a Hollywood movie out of a war. Jessica Lynch, after she was set free, went on TV and said the military was lying. She was never beaten, never in danger. The people in the hospital treated her very nicely; in fact, the nurses sang her to sleep because they were so concerned about her welfare.

This is a huge problem for the American military. You can pull this crap when you're fighting Somalis and Iraqis, but against the Iranians, you need total war. You need to focus on economics, organization, and logistics. Unfortunately, it is now the very mentality of the Pentagon to turn war into a Hollywood movie.

A paper written by Connor Mills at Brown University talks about how the Pentagon and Hollywood are aligned. Here are the three major takeaways:

• In exchange for the use of military equipment and personnel, movie and TV program producers must comply with Pentagon entertainment policy, including script changes to align with military goals like recruitment and public relations.
• Since the inception of the Hollywood entertainment industry more than a century ago, over 2,500 war-themed movies and TV programs have been made with Pentagon assistance.
• Pentagon-assisted movies and TV shows frame US wars as necessary and glorious, downplaying or ignoring the human, social, and environmental devastation war causes, particularly for civilians. US soldiers are typically cast as noble protagonists, while those non-US peoples deemed enemies of America are constantly stereotyped.

What this paper is saying is that the Pentagon uses Hollywood to indoctrinate and brainwash the American people into believing that war is good. But what's also true is that by working with Hollywood, it brainwashes the Pentagon into believing that war can be like Hollywood. It can be perfected. As long as you create a good script, it will work out in the end. This will lead to disaster in Iran.

Think about Donald Trump and the failed ground invasion. What you should do is go back, sit down with Pentagon planners, and figure out what went wrong so you never make the mistake again. But Donald Trump does not want to admit it was a failed ground invasion. So they made up a stupid Hollywood script that this was a rescue of an American pilot. From their perspective, this is a huge success. And this is going to lead to problems, because if it's a huge success, then do it again.

The American military is too dominated by special forces—by Delta Force, by Navy SEALs—who are interested only in their own personal glory. Many of them understand that after this war is over, they can sign a book deal, make millions of dollars, and become a superstar. That's how they think. What they should be thinking about are organization, logistics, and economics, because these are the three things that win wars.

Is the story of Saving Private Ryan based on a true event?

No, it's just a made-up movie. Most of these things are made up. The problem with Hollywood is that it's so seductive and attractive that people think these stories are true. People think the movie is more true than real life. That's how not only the Pentagon works, but all of American society works now. Americans live in their own fantasy world created by Hollywood, and the realities of war are too far away for them to care about. Americans think that, at worst, food prices will go up. They can't really imagine how this war will forever change the world, as well as America.

How long can America sustain this focus on optics over reality?

They will never learn because they live in a different reality. Donald Trump surrounds himself with people who just tell him what he wants to hear. The reason he's able to go in front of the press and say what a great success we had in saving a pilot is because he himself believes it. He lives in an alternate reality, a fantasy land, and that's why he's able to so convincingly tell the press and the American people that this was a great success, even though if you look at the evidence, this was a tremendous failure.

Unfortunately, this will not change. As this war continues, you will have more incidents like this—a failure that the American military and Donald Trump spin as a tremendous success. The American people will continue to believe that this war is going well. We know this because this is exactly what happened in Ukraine. For the past few years, Russia has been dominating the battlefield, and it's been a disaster for Ukraine. But you wouldn't know this if you're an average American because the news tells you that the war is going great. "One more day, guys, and Putin will fall. One more day and the Russian economy will collapse." It's the same situation here: "One more day and Iran will surrender."

This is modern war, where it's really about optics. But if you want to win, you can't focus on optics, because ultimately, you're only fooling yourself.

How can America still be a dominant power if its military operates this way?

You're right that America is still the empire and will not fall because of this war. Worst-case scenario, they lose and they go home. One thing to think about is that the strategic objectives of the Americans and the Iranians are not actually in conflict with each other.

If you look at the Iranians, their strategic objectives are:

1. Get America out of the Middle East.
2. Destroy the global economy.
3. Deter Israel.

Now let's look at America's strategic objectives:

1. Destroy Iran as a nation-state (destroy desalination plants, power plants, universities, reservoirs).
2. Balkanize Iran (encourage ethnic uprisings).
3. Isolate Iran (destroy its capacity to trade with Russia and China).

One really strange thing about this war is that these strategic objectives are not in conflict. Even if Iran is able to achieve its objectives, it doesn't prevent America from achieving its objectives. In other words, at the end of this war, we can expect both countries to achieve their strategic objectives. America will be out of the Middle East, Israel will be humbled, and the global economy will be destroyed. But at the same time, Iran will be destroyed as a nation-state, Balkanized, and basically bombed back to the Stone Age.

Because the strategic objectives are different, both nations think they'll win the war. Objectively, we might think that America is losing, but from the American perspective, the way they frame their objectives means they are winning. That's why they think any day now, Iran will surrender. But from the Iranian perspective, they think they're winning and that any day now, America will surrender. That's why it's impossible to get the two to negotiate a peace settlement.